Photographic depictions, transmissions, recreations and representations of the real world may capture image information representative of visible physical surroundings by using lens elements to focus light information on recording or transmission mediums (for example, camera sensors, film, light sensitive arrays, etc.) Images may be captured and stored for later viewing, or transmitted live, to a wide variety of end users both locally and distantly located relative to the environment providing the imagery.
Virtual reality (VR) refers to the replacement of sensory perception data of an environment inhabited by a user with computer-generated data, in some aspects to enable a user to experience an entirely different world from the present physical location of the user. For example, a user at home during cold winter months may engage a VR device to convey imagery and sounds from a beach vacation destination many miles away. Augmented reality (AR) refers to presentations of combinations of real-world and generated elements, sometimes by processing a camera feed through a computer to add generated elements before displaying it to the user, such as a heads-up display of navigation routing overlay that is superimposed on a camera feed of a street presently being traveled by the user. Some systems may provide both VR and AR capabilities, wherein an AR display device that blends real-world camera image feeds with computer generated data may be used to generate VR displays by dropping the real-world image data from a camera feed, leaving only generated or artificial world views.